HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1977-04-27, Page 21.5
- WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1977 ONTARIO
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each. Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising.
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $8.00 a year. Others
$14.00 a year, Single Copies 20 cents each.
We have an
obligation to save
farm land
Wind power
*CNA
The controversy around the loss of arable farmland
in Canada rages as municipal planners and
developers pressure all levels of government for
greater access to agricultural land. The statistics
make strange reading -- 26 acres an hour disappear,
7,000 acres of Niagara Peninsula farmland zoned for
•construction and on the other side of the ledger
thousands die daily of starvation in the Third and
Fourth World.
Confronted with these contradictory statements,
politicians argue that it is simplistic to compare
world food shortages with the loss of prime land in ,
Southern Canada. For, the reasoning goes, even with
the steady encroachment of farmland there is more
than enough acreage left to feed Ontario and still
export food products.
Somewhere, like so many of the arguments in our
technological age, people miss the point. Food and,
its distribution are among the most crucial questions
facing planet Earth and its ability to feed itself
declines daily. As cities grow around the world there
is greater need for food producers everywhere to be
encouraged to stay on the land and help meet this
world-wide crisis. Yet here in Canada, truly one of
the breadbaskets of the world -- even if we use only
the 13 percent of our land mass considered to be
potential agricultural land (only 2% is prime
agricultural land) more and more farmers leave the
land every year, less and less of their farms are
viable, the acreage is paved over or built up and
agriculture seen as a second-class business.
We believe that provincial and federal govern-
ments must get their priorities straight and
encourage by whatever means available people to
keep their land in production, to foster farming as a
proud means of earning a livelihood and to return
more land to agriculture, rather than diminishing it
daily.
We do have a responsibility to people outside this
country who are starving and it is right to question
how best we use our existing farm land.
(The United Church)
When Toronto named ,its new baseball
team Blue Jays, I thought that was for the
birds..Can you imagine? Strong and virile
men slamming homers into the grand-
stands and leaping up into the air for high
flys? And with the name of Blue Jays?
Why on earth did the top brass want to
choose sonic toothpick legged and pee wee
sized bird for the name of their. ball team?
If they wanted a bird, why didn't they go
• for•Hawk or Eagle? Or some other kind of
raiding, hard-driving bird that can strike
terror in the heart of the foe?
And better still, why not some animal?
With prowess overpotent? Panther, Lion,
Lynx and Leopard.
But a blue jay? That high pitched,
chattering magpie whose glory is blue
feathers and chirping nonsense.
Oh, I know. I know what the owners were
thinking when they picked the winning
name from all the contest entries. I know
the name of the major stockholders.
Lablatt's Blue. It didn't take me long to see
the connection between Lablatts Blue and
Blue Jays. It's highly co-incidental.
And. highly co-incidental too, when the
talk was about beer in the grandstands.
Quite a holy trinity. Blue Jays. Lablatts
beer and Cordon Blue beer service in the
ballpark.
But a government ruling unyoked that
alliance. And the flap about beer foam in
the grandstands fizzled right out.
The ruling persists -- at least for the
while.The stadium is'dry. And not just for
the plebians who cheer in the bleacher
seats, but for the box office customers as
well. Beer is out, for everybody. For both
the classes -- and masses.There's no booze
to choose -- anywhere at the ball park.
I'll drink to that.
drink to no beer in the ball park. I'll
stick with dry Toronto sports events and
risk my reputation as being as outdated as
some of Ontario's liquor laws. Okay, go
ahead. Colour me blue.
Now, it, may be true, as some of the
famous one liners_ about Toronto go: "I
spend a week inToronto -- one Sunday."
Or "Toronto's great. It's just that you have
to work a little harder to sin there on
Sunday."
And it's also true. If people want to
drink, they're going to • drink. There's
nothing to stop them from bringing it in on
their hip pocket into the ball park.
But no matter. The ball park doesn't
have to bring it in for them.-It doesn't have
to turn the bleachers into a beer garden, I
want to see the action down on the
ballfield, not in the bleachers.
The government knows what it's doing.
They know that drinking is one of its major
social problems. And even though it takes
in millions -- over 355 million dollars in
booze tax -- it has to hand out' at least that
much in alcohol rehabilitation, related
accidents and illnesses, absenteeism, and
industrial losses.
The government knows that easy
avilability can well encourage consump-
tion: Just read the statistics about the
drinking 18 year olds.
I'm content to leave the beer at home in
-the fridge. I'll celebrate when. I get home.
And the way those Blue Jays are
playing, there's lots to celebrate about.
Those Jays are coming through. They're
making all of our hearts glad. They're
proving that great things can come out of
the minor leagues.
I think they're trying to show me up.
Make me eat humble crow. Humble blue
jay. They're going to showme -- birds or no
-- blue jays or no ---they're not for the
birds:They're proving they're a top rate
ball team. And they're, going to make me
cheeer them on and keep them high flying
and full feathered.
Amen
by Karl Schuessler ,
The Blue Jays fly high
Say to yourself.
Boy it's great to be in shape.
Wouldn't it be nice
;rpm could mean it.
pa/um/v(7,10n
The Canadian movement for peronal fitnet.
Fitness. In your heart you know it's right